Putin: Policy of confining Russia continues
MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax) - The West has failed to give up the policy of confining Russia that it has been pursuing for centuries, said President Vladimir Putin.
"We have every reason to think that the notorious policy of confining Russia, pursued in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues today," he told the Federal Assembly on Tuesday.
"Attempts are being made all the time to drive us into a sort of corner merely because we have an independent position which we defend, and because we call things by their proper names, without being hypocritical," he said.
"But everything has it limits," Putin said,
"We did not see reciprocal steps. Just the opposite. We were being deceived. Decisions would be made behind our back. We would be made to face accomplished facts," Putin said.
"The same applies to NATO's eastward enlargement, the deployment of missile defense systems, the indefinitely protracted talks on visa problems and promises of honest competition and free access to global markets," the Russian president said.
"We are being threatened with sanctions today. But we live already in conditions of a host of restrictions which are quite tangible for our economy and for our country," Putin said. "The CoCom lists, which banned the Soviet Union from selling a long list of technologies and equipment, actually remains in force," he said.